Jingle Bun Run Race Recap

On December 14th, 2014 I participated in a Half-Marathon put on by Schlotzky’s in Temple, Texas and I’m pretty sure my legs fell off at some point.

I was not as prepared for this race as I had thought I was going to be – which is, actually all my fault seeing as I didn’t get off my ass and put in the miles for it like I should have. Luckily, I was not alone in my faults – as my friend Courtney was in the same predicament!

This was the first race I’ve ever run with someone and y’all, it was pretty awesome. We talked prior to the race about our plan of attack and when realizing we had roughly the same pace, figured we’d stick together. It helped me through some of the later miles when my legs were like, “YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF I SHALL CRAMP NOW! HAHA.” We chatted, talked, complained, and tried to keep moving as the wind was shoveling his skanky face down our, uh, face.

Temperatures were in the high 30s, with wind gusts up to 20 mph – so it wasn’t exactly pleasant but I managed to finish in 3:01:30. That’s about average for me, so despite not really putting in the time on my feet I still got-r-done.

We were pretty much all over the place with our mile times, there was stretching, walking & talking going on so we figured as much. The course was a loop we did twice (turns out I’m not a fan of loop races), so when we hit the 10k point I was like man, I’m feeling better than I thought – let’s do this thing! And uh then, mile 10 happened and yeah, well I was fucking done. I tried to just focus on pumping my arms, so my feet would move and telling myself that “I get to do this.” It helped just enough to cross the finish line.

I knew I was going to be pretty miserable and sore the second I crossed the finish line, so I was really looking forward to grabbing some food and taking a shower. Unfortunately, the daughter had other plans and we ended up going to the Urgent Care for a serious ear infection situation. I love that she can talk now, but hearing a kid scream “MAMA I NEED MEDICINE” for 45 minutes on the way to the doctor is no way to celebrate 13.1 miles.

We finally made it home with medicine and I hit the shower around 5pm that evening.  It was a long, cold day but really was a great race. Schlotzky’s & Temple Parks & Recreation did a great job organizing the run, and all the volunteers kicked ass motivating us to keep on trucking. I wouldn’t mind running this one again next year (better prepared of course) simply because the medal is pretty adorable. And incredibly tasty looking.

Mmm..medal.

My next race isn’t scheduled until the end of January (unless of course I get suckered into one – which happens) where I’ll be double medaling. Yeah, that’s right. DOUBLE MEDALING. Basically I’ll run the 5k portion on Saturday and the half on Sunday. In the meantime, the soreness I felt after this race and my mental attitude really has cemented the fact that I need to get fucking serious about this marathon training and stop letting excuses make my long weekend runs fall to the wayside.

Here’s to running over Christmas break and not dying!

Until we run again!